cream, stimulating seasonings, sauces rarely spiced, the sort that
recreate worn-out appetites, were never lacking at a Rivers' meal.
Ruth had been overfed, had been wrongly fed since babyhood.

The expert said hope lay in taking her back to babyhood and feeding
her for days as though she were a four months' child. He said she must
be taught to eat; that her salvation lay in a few foods of plebeian
simplicity, foods which almost any one could get anywhere, foods which
did not involve long hours of preparation according to priceless
recipes. He said also that certain other foods were vicious, such
matter-of-course foods on the Rivers' table, foods which Mrs. Rivers
would have felt humiliated to omit from a meal of her ordering, and he
insisted that these must be lastingly denied this young woman with
prematurely exhausted, digestive glands. The process of her
reeducation, succinctly expressed as it was in a few sentences, called
for tedious months of care, of denial and of effort. It demanded that
which was more than taxing in many details. So for Ruth Rivers long
weeks were spent in a hospital-bed. She was fed on the simplest of
foods, each feeding measured with the same care as were her few
medicines, for now truly her food was medicine, and her chief medicine
was food. Massage seemed at last to bring help, for even in bed she
gained in strength.

It was several weeks before her mind was entirely clear, but she was
soon being taught the science of food; this included an understanding
outline of food chemistry, of the processes of digestion, of food
values, of the relation of food to work, of the vital importance of
muscular activity and the relation of muscle-use to nervous health.
Her beloved sweets and her strong coffee, the only friends of her
suffering days, were gradually buried even from thought in this